TASMANIA.
The colony of Tasmania is comparatively small, but its insular position makes it one of the critical points in Australian defence. Up to the present time owing to the small population and revenue, its principal harbours have been less strongly fortified than those of Australia, and military authorities have constantly urged greater attention to its defences upon the ground that by seizing positions here an enemy might find means of coal supply and a base from which to attack Australia. Upon this point the report of General Edwards was most emphatic. The island is within three days' steaming distance from Adelaide, one from Melbourne, two and a half from Sydney and four from New Zealand. With several fine harbours, a soil and climate equal to any in the world, a considerable coal supply, and as yet only a limited population to resist attack, Tasmania {225} would present to any hostile power not merely an opportunity but almost a temptation to establish a Gibraltar in the Southern seas. Tasmania has strong commercial reasons for wishing to federate with Australia. On the other hand in an Australian federation she would have the strongest reasons for opposing separation from the mother-country. Like New Zealand, she depends for safety upon naval defence, a defence she could not receive from the colonies of the continent.
So far as it is possible to judge from external indications the opinion of this small but strategically most important colony is almost entirely in favour of close and permanent connection with the Empire. During discussion on the subject carried on in the principal centres of population, and extending over some weeks, I found that the idea of British unity was heartily supported by everyone of the leading newspapers, and by most of the principal public men, including the leaders of the Government and Opposition. Opposing ideas have their representatives in a small group of sincere republicans, headed by the present Attorney-General, the Hon. A. Inglis Clark. The republicanism of this small party was the more interesting, as it seemed to me quite unconnected with and superior to the irrational and bitter anti-British feeling which occasionally finds expression in one or two of the Australian colonies.
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NEW ZEALAND
In New Zealand I found among politicians, journalists, and the public generally, a remarkable consensus of opinion that the circumstances of that colony would always compel it to regard questions of national defence and consolidation from its own point of view, and in a large measure independently of Australia. Facts justify this attitude. New Zealand is 1000 miles long and nowhere more than 150 broad. Cut in two by a broad strait and penetrated by numerous bays and inlets, it has 3000 miles of coast line, and is therefore more exposed from a naval point of view than any other equally fertile, wealthy, and thinly settled country in the world. That it is an outlying part of Australia is an illusion left on many minds from a casual glance at small maps of the Southern Hemisphere, but the illusion vanishes the moment we visit the country or consider the facts. Twelve hundred miles of open sea separate it from Australia. The trade between the two is growing, but it is insignificant compared with the flood of commerce which pours from each towards Britain. The similarity of production will probably make this a permanent condition, save when drought compels Australia to look to New Zealand for food supplies. Britain is New Zealand's one great market, and it has become a more steady and reliable market from the means which have been devised to transfer the perishable produce of New Zealand farms to the {227} British consumer. Meanwhile, in her isolated position only naval power can give the colony adequate defence. The states of Australia can give effective support to each other—they cannot give it to New Zealand until they possess a fleet sufficient to command the Southern seas, and such a fleet they will not possess at any time within the range of present political calculation. Among reflective men in New Zealand one finds no readiness to believe that geographical isolation could be relied upon for giving military security, an idea which has considerable vogue in parts of Australia. 'I see that the tendency of enterprize and science is every year more to annihilate space, and space will be annihilated for purposes of war as well as peace, and the distance of the colonies from those who may attack them every year becomes less and less of a protection to them.' These words of Lord Salisbury express not inaccurately, I think, the prevailing thought of all serious politicans in New Zealand in regard to their country. The feeling is strengthened by a further consideration. New Zealand has already a good deal of trade with the scattered islands of the Pacific. This trade is likely to have a large development as time goes on. At any rate New Zealanders have formed a very definite ambition to acquire a large commercial connection and powerful influence in the Pacific, an ambition which can scarcely be realized unless its commercial interests have adequate naval support.
Considerations of the kind I have mentioned explain {228} the comparative indifference of the colony to Australian federation, which would never satisfy her necessities except as subsidiary to the larger national union. They explain the fairly unanimous support which her ablest public men have given to the general principle of national Federation. Mr. Ballance, the Liberal Premier of New Zealand, said in the House of Representatives, in a discussion which took place prior to the Australasian Federal Convention at Sydney, that 'Imperial Federation, with a free management of its own affairs as at present, was the only future he would look to for the colony.' Equally strong expressions could be gathered from the speeches or writings of most of the leading men of New Zealand. The fear lest Australian Federation might ultimately lead to separation from the Empire was publicly and expressly assigned as a reason why New Zealand should not be a part of the Australian commonwealth. Inside an Australasian Federation New Zealand's influence would be steadily thrown in favour of British national unity. On the other hand, should Australia ever move towards separation—an improbable contingency, but one often suggested by a few of her journalists and public men—the advantage in prestige and more practical ways which New Zealand would derive from retaining the wide national connection, and becoming the centre of the Empire's naval strength in the Southern seas, would infinitely outweigh anything Australia could possibly offer, and would decide the course to which {229} self-interest even now points. The individual interest which New Zealand thus holds towards the question is very significant, and worthy of careful attention. Placed in the centre of the water hemisphere of the globe this 'Britain of the South' seems the precise complement of the mother-country at the centre of the land hemisphere, while a conjunction of circumstances,—the possession of excellent harbours, already very fairly defended, and easily made impregnable, a plentiful supply of coal, timber, and metals, a climate which never fails to favour abundant crops, and nourishes a sturdy race,—fits the country to be the opposite pole of the Oceanic Empire which Britain has created. Distance might be supposed to have lessened commercial intercourse with the mother-land; as a matter of fact it is greater in proportion to wealth and population than that of any other country. Roughly putting the exports of New Zealand at £10,000,000 per annum, £7,000,000 go to Great Britain, £2,250,000 to other parts of the Empire, and only the small remaining balance to other countries. The proportion of imports is not widely different. Community of interest could scarcely be greater than this. The safety of this trade, too, is of the very essence of the prosperity, one might almost say of the commercial life of the country. Its stoppage would mean financial and industrial paralysis. We have therefore some measure of what the security guaranteed by the greatest naval power in the world means to New Zealand.
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On the other hand, it would be difficult to exaggerate the advantage which such a power would derive in war from the exclusive use of this halfway place in the voyage around the world. Auckland, Lyttleton, Wellington and Dunedin all have excellent harbours. The fortifications which protect them, constructed and equipped at the expense of the colony itself, are, says General Edwards in his report 'well planned, and the armaments are sufficient to repel the attack of several cruisers, provided the defence is properly organized and competent officers appointed to command.' Thus they furnish a comparatively secure retreat for ships of commerce or of war. Auckland and Lyttleton have docks, that at Auckland being capacious enough to receive for repair the largest ship of war afloat. Even now the vessels of France, Germany and other nations call here to coal, victual, or repair, finding such stations as Samoa or Noumea but poor bases from which to operate. The advantage to a nation holding these ports in time of war would be overwhelming. It would scarcely be diminished even if Australia should become independent. Other powers, if they respected Australia's independence, could not use her ports as a base of attack, and at the utmost could only demand the rights of neutrals which would be of little use in a serious conflict with Britain while retaining the exclusive possession of New Zealand. The defection of one or two of the Australian colonies, or even of the whole continent, would weaken {231} the chain of the Empire's maritime position, but would not create in it a fatal flaw, so long as New Zealand remains faithful to the national allegiance. The practically undivided sentiment of her people and her own supreme interests alike incline her in this direction.
[1] Address before Royal Colonial Institute—March, 1891.
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CHAPTER IX.
SOUTH AFRICA.
THOSE who claim that the separation from the Empire of any one of our three groups of great colonies would inflict a serious if not a fatal blow on our national greatness and the prosperity of British people—point with no slight interest to the illustration of their argument which is furnished by South Africa. Here, again, we have under the British flag a country of vast extent and favourable for European occupation. The institutions of self-government are already established over a wide area, and are being gradually extended. A confederation of all the South African provinces is already in the thought of practical statesmen. We have here, then, the probability of the formation of another power, so large that a merely colonial position cannot be expected to satisfy its ultimate political necessities. Though at present far inferior to Canada and Australia in population, and behind them in fulness of constitutional development, it is moving along the same lines of political growth, and circumstances may at any time lead to a rapid increase of population. Most of the arguments, therefore, which are used, in, {233} favour of Canadian or Australian separation apply to South Africa as well. If an independent government, a separate foreign policy, a distinct system of defence, an individual diplomatic relation to the rest of the world, is a political necessity for Australia, New Zealand, or Canada, it is clearly an equal necessity for South Africa. The internal impulse towards independence might even be expected to be exceptionally strong, since a considerable fraction of the white population is not British by descent, and has been led by circumstances to feel a peculiar sensitiveness in regard to political rights.
Is then the retention of South Africa under the national flag, and within the national system, a matter of indifference to British people either at home or abroad? Is the separation of South Africa, its freedom to associate itself with any power it pleases, or even its being placed in a position where British people could only enjoy or be granted neutral rights in its harbours, a condition of things which can be discussed with equanimity by Australians, New Zealanders, East Indians, nay, even by Canadians with their great ocean interests, to say nothing of the people of the United Kingdom itself? The test which South Africa applies to separatist theories seems to me a crucial one.
Once more I cannot do better than quote from the 'Problems of
Greater Britain.'
The author says: 'Considered from the Imperial, from the Indian, and from the Australian point {234} of view, as an aid to our maritime power, no spot on earth is more important to us than the Cape with its twin harbours Table Bay and Simon's Bay.' And again: 'While a general hostility to our rule would be sufficient to make us part with almost any other colony, it is impossible for us to give up the military station which we occupy at the extremity of the African continent and which itself cannot be held unless we hold at all events a portion of the country round it.'
No one who considers the geographical position of the Cape, and its relation to the greatest trade route of the Empire, can regard these utterances as exaggerated. The Cape is, and must always be, one of the greatest turning places of the world's commerce. Between St. Helena and Mauritius for the Indian bound ships, between St. Helena and King George's Sound for those going towards the Southern seas, the Cape is the only sufficient resting-place that European ships can find.
'As a vessel steaming from British ports for India, or China, or Australia, in time of war begins to approach the point of exhaustion of its coal supply it finds itself in a region of storms, far from any shelter except that at the Cape of Good Hope. The position of that refuge, and the certainty of being able to deny it to an enemy, combined with the command of the Red Sea route, even if only for the purpose of stopping it, draws therefore, on behalf of England, an almost impassable line on this side of the globe {235} between the Eastern and the Western Hemispheres. The difficulty which our ownership of the Cape places in the way of possible opponents, even more than the refuge afforded to our ships, constitutes in war the supreme advantage of the possession of the Cape of Good Hope as a naval station[1].'
Such being the relation of South Africa to the Empire, such the importance of its remaining under the British flag, we may well ask, with some anxiety, whether the feelings of its people and the interests of the colony point in the same direction.
The attitude of the leading men of South Africa towards the idea of national unity is clearly defined. Mr. Hofmeyer, the leader of the Dutch or Afrikander party, at the colonial conference of 1887, brought forward, and earnestly pressed upon the assembled delegates, a scheme for 'promoting a closer union between the various parts of the British Empire by means of an imperial tariff of customs.' His words indicate the temper of mind in which he addresses himself to the question: 'I have taken this matter in hand with two objects: to promote the union of the Empire, and at the same time to obtain revenue for the purpose of general defence.'
Sir Gordon Sprigg, for many years Premier of Cape Colony, speaking in London in 1891, strongly advocated a similar policy, and was urgent, to quote his own words, 'that an invitation should be addressed to the governments of the various colonies and dependencies {236} to send representatives to this country to consider, in a conference, the practicability of forming a commercial union between the different parts of the Empire,' regarding this as the most effectual way of accomplishing what he considered should be the aim of national statesmanship, viz. the unification of national interests.
The present Premier of Cape Colony, and the most influential man in South Africa, Mr. Cecil Rhodes, has stated that he looks upon the consolidation of the different colonies of South Africa as the main aim of his political life, but at the same time his utterances, from the beginning of his political career to the present moment, indicate conclusively that he only thinks of a united South Africa as an integral part of a united Empire, so constituted as to give adequate expression to the aims of its various members. It is interesting to find that these three men, who may be taken as representing the different sides of South African feeling, all eminently practical, and all above a suspicion of subjecting the interest of the colony to the interest of the nation at large, are agreed in the belief that the best future for their country is close association with the mother-land, and the Empire. And looking at the facts of the situation, from a South African point of view, who can doubt that they are justified? Pressing upon British South Africa on all sides are the nations of Europe. France is in Madagascar. Bordering on British territories are those of Germany and Portugal. {237} The Dutch Republics, as yet only half won to friendliness and sympathy, are close at hand. Large native populations—which do not fade away, as in America, New Zealand, or Australia at the approach of the white man, but rather multiply under influences which make for peace—are all around. The development of a great continent overflowing with stores of wealth depends not only on the energy of the men who have the work directly in hand, but on the confidence they feel that behind them is the diplomacy of a powerful nation to maintain their rights, the wealth of a rich nation to furnish them with capital, the strength of a great people to secure them, in emergency, from disaster.
If the British connection seems of such significance to South African statesmen, in working out the future of their vast country, quite as much does the Empire require the constant advice of those statesmen in directing the difficult diplomacy and making the critical decisions which the control of so much of the continent necessitates. The lack of such advice, directly and consistently sought, is probably at the root of much of the difficulty of the past. In the long run South African opinion must dominate national policy in South Africa. That it should be expressed in an authoritative form, and under a due sense of national responsibility, are the conditions which will make it most helpful, and most reliable.
Sir Gordon Sprigg and other public men from the Cape have pointed out to me how peculiar are the {238} problems which arise in South African politics, how much they stand apart from Anglo-Saxon experience in other parts of the world, how impossible it is for anyone who has not to deal with these problems on the spot to understand them. Here, if anywhere, the maxim is true to which I have alluded in another place, that 'only those who know a country are fitted to rule it.' It is only by utilizing the knowledge and experience of the best minds of the country that adequate direction can be given to its external relations as to its internal government.
The actual and contingent stake which Great Britain, Australia and other parts of the Empire have in the exclusive use of the Cape as a naval station in time of war may be roughly outlined in figures. Lord Brassey, dwelling upon the importance to the nation of completing the fortification and equipment of the neighbouring harbours, mentions in the Naval Annual for 1890, that at present about £90,000,000 worth of commerce centres at or passes this point every year, including £20,000,000 of outward trade to Australia, £13,000,000 to the Cape itself, and portions of the Indian, Chinese and other Eastern trade which make up the whole. This is under normal conditions. But should the Suez Canal be closed, and it is difficult to see how in a great European war this could be prevented, unless England could obtain and maintain absolute naval control of the Mediterranean, and military control of Egypt, then at least £150,000,000, and possibly £200,000,000 of {239} British trade would be forced to go round the Cape. I have mentioned elsewhere Lord Dufferin's statement, to the London Chamber of Commerce, that if anything ever occurred to take away our control of the Indian markets there is not a cottage in the manufacturing districts of England which would not feel the blow at once. If this be true of the Indian trade alone, the argument becomes much more impressive when applied to the risks which would be incurred, alike by Britain, India, and Australia if they were compelled to depend for the security of the whole vast volume of Eastern and Australian commerce upon such neutral rights as could be granted by an independent South Africa, or if they left the Cape in such a position that it could be seized by a hostile power. We have an interesting historical illustration of what security on this great trade route means in the fact, stated on apparently reliable authority, that between the years 1793 and 1797, when the French held the Isle of France and Bourbon, no less than 2266 British merchantmen were seized by French ships or expeditions sallying out from those stations. So intolerable did the situation become for British commerce that the conquest of the French stations became an absolute necessity, and this was effected in 1810 when a new outbreak of war had made like disaster imminent. Yet this was before the vast trade of Australasia had come into existence, and when our trade with the East was but a trifle compared with its present great proportions.
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In the case of South Africa, however, the argument for national unity is so strong that few undertake to question it. Not long since, in the Manchester Reform Club, I met a sincere disciple of the old school of thinkers on colonial policy. He had studied the question under Mr. Goldwin Smith, at Toronto, and was at first concisely and comprehensively dogmatic in his assertion that the only plan for England was not only to permit, but to encourage, each of the great colonies to become independent as soon as possible. He was an honest thinker, and one could with him afford to stake the argument on a candid answer to a single question. 'Could Great Britain, with any regard to the safety of her national position, afford to give up South Africa'? The emphatic negative which, after a moment's thought, he gave, was the only reply possible for one who acknowledged the force of facts when presented to his mind.